Overview

Kukulcan's Realm chronicles the fabric of socioeconomic relationships and religious practice that bound the Postclassic Maya city of Mayapan's urban residents together for nearly three centuries. Presenting results of ten years of household archaeology at the city, including field research and laboratory analysis, the book discusses the social, political, economic, and ideological makeup of this complex urban center. Masson and Peraza Lope's detailed overview provides evidence of a vibrant market economy that played a critical role in the city's political and economic success. They offer new perspectives from the homes of governing elites, secondary administrators, affluent artisans, and poorer members of the service industries. Household occupational specialists depended on regional trade for basic provisions that were essential to crafting industries, sustenance, and quality of life. Settlement patterns reveal intricate relationships of households with neighbors, garden plots, cultivable fields, thoroughfares, and resources. Urban planning endeavored to unite the cityscape and to integrate a pluralistic populace that derived from hometowns across the Yucatan peninsula. New data from Mayapan, the pinnacle of Postclassic Maya society, contribute to a paradigm change regarding the evolution and organization of Maya society in general and make Kukulcan's Realm a must-read for students and scholars of the ancient Maya and Mesoamerica.

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9781607324270

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Reviews

Kukulcan's Realm is an in-depth study of a great city that prospered at the very end of the Maya era. The authors have used the latest archaeological techniques to coax plentiful new information from the ruins. This volume is a highly enlightening report on that research. Georgia Fox, American Archaeology A substantial, in-depth study of life Mayapan. . . The level of detail in the data presentation will be useful for archaeologists working at other sites in Mesoamerica and beyond, and the cultural interpretations will interest general readers. A rare work in that it shows so clearly the the connection between data and interpretation. J. J. Aimers, Choice

Kukulcan's Realm is an in-depth study of a great city that prospered at the very end of the Maya era. The authors have used the latest archaeological techniques to coax plentiful new information from the ruins. This volume is a highly enlightening report on that research. Georgia Fox, American Archaeology A substantial, in-depth study of life Mayapan. . . The level of detail in data presentation will be useful for archaeologists working at other sites in Mesoamerica and beyond, and the cultural interpretations will interest general readers. A rare work in that it shows so clearly the the connection between data and interpretation. J. J. Aimers, Choice

Author Information

Marilyn A. Masson is professor of anthropology at the University of Albany, State University of New York, and codirector of the Economic Foundations of Mayapan Project. Carlos Peraza Lope is project director with Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropologia in Merida, Yucatan, and codirector of the Economic Foundations of Mayapan Project.

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